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Hiya all, I decided to keep going with my save in the end. Year is 2022-2023. I was right in there in the race for the EPL title with 5 games to go, however I went and lost 3, drew 1 and won 1 and finished 5th after leading the table for spells. I'm not disappointed though, I was blatantly over-achieving with some results I definitely felt were lucky, away wins at Chelsea, Man Utd and Tottenham to name a few.

Still EUROCUP for a second season in a row, boosts the old club rep anyway atleast!!

Sheffield FC were promoted last season, losing only 1 game and getting an astonishing 113 points! Also, after they got to the 4th round of the FA Cup too, they have been given a kit sponsorship deal at £24.9m per annum which ends in 2012! Meaning I have a transfer budget of £14m, and wage budget of around £110k p/w!

Well this took a rather long time to type up thanks to the Steam Sale, several new books and then the forums going down...

After completing a clean sweep last season more was expected this (adding the Super Cup and World Club Cup).

However I'd have to do it with a weaker side as I was forced to sell first teamers Muraccioli and Schmidt, whilst a load of squad players were sold on which brought in £100m (in four out of the last five years I've sold £100m worth of players), whilst £17 was spent bringing in promising youngsters including three Croatians from Dinamo.

The board again expected a Top Four finish, whilst the bookies and the media again made us Second favourites to Man City - who last won the league in 2023, the Champions League in 2028 and the FA Cup in 2018.

Community Shield - We retained the Community Shield for qa record fifth year in a row with a comfortable win over Man City.

European Super Cup - We just about reclaimed this, despite controlling the entire game our finishing was poor.

Carling Cup - Went horribly wrong as we lost to Watford in extra-time in the Third Round, thanks to some woeful finishing.

World Club Cup - In December we jetted off to South Korea to attempt to reclaim the World Club Cup and we got off to a good start thrashing Seongnam 4-1 after dominating the entire game, in the Final we were equaly impressive claiming a 4-1 win over River Plate to claim the trophy for the second time, we even made a clean sweep of the Best Player Awards this season.

Premier League - We walked the league this season finally remaining unbeaten for the season and claimed the title after just 31 games - three of our draws were due to woeful finishing Sunderland and Watford games ended 0-0 whilst Barnsley claimed a 1-1 draw, our first draw was 1-1 to Man Utd after we gave away a first half penalty and spent the entire second half with 10 men, we finally equalisled in the 88th minute after Utd had been reduced to 10 men, we also drew 0-0 to Arsenal were we didn't turn up and my Keeper saved us, though the closest game was against Chelsea, we just didn't turn up and were 2-0 down until we got a soft pen in the 82nd minute, before being reduced to 10 men but we somehow claimed an equalisler in the 93rd minute to keep us unbeaten, rather annoying is the fact that we couldn't beat Chelseas Goal record of 93.

Champions League - We moved upto Third Favourites this season behind Real and Barcelona. In the Group Stage we draw Valencia, Galatasaray and Austria Wien and we just about managed to finish top of the group - we suffered a shock defeat to Valencia in our Second game and could only draw to Wien in our third game leaving us third in the group, however three wins in our final three games saw us leap frog Valencia.

In the Knockout Round we'd face Dutch side AZ again and despite controlling the game once again the finishing of my second string let me down and two moments of madness in the second half meant we somehow went home 2-0 down and were looking like suffering a costly early exit. In the Second Leg I fielded my first team and Ryan Reeves destroyed AZ grabbing all four goals as we comfortable booked our place in the Quarter Finals and rather surprisingly we'd be facing AC Milan as even though they lost the First Leg 4-0 to Valencia they won the second one 6-0!

In the Quarter Final First Leg with the Premier League already secured I was able to field my first team and two first half goals from Reeves were enough for the win, though letting Milan grab an away goal through my former player Pejic meant they were still in the tie. In the Second Leg despite conceeding a first half goal two second half goals were enough for another 2-1 win that sent us through to the Semi-Finals.

In the Semi-Finals we would face FC Bayern for the first time and an inspired first half performance saw us claim a comfortable 5-0 win, in the Second Leg we didn't turn up but Bayern could only claim a 2-1 win.

In the Final at Celtic Park we would meet Barcelona for the 11th time and we both came out attacking, Herbert gave us the lead after just 4 mins with a long range effort, Barcelona quickly equalised before Zelaia scored a free kick and with space opening up Reeves added two more goals before Barcelona pulled one back in injury time, in the second half we held Barcelona to retain the Champions League.

FA Cup - We had an easy run to the final where we would meet Man City and despite not playing that well goals from Leite and Reeves were enough to claim a 2-1 win and ensured we set a new record of 12 straight wins.

Squad - With us struggling to break sides down this season I tweaked my tactics switching my Wingers from Attacking duties to Support, this meant they dropped deeper and opened up more passing options for my midfield which also reduced the amount of long shots we took.

Taha Kodalak continued in goal and yet again he kept more clean sheets than goals conceeded - keeping a clean sheet in half of his games, he was also finally renamed European Keeper of the Year, with a random Belgian based American Keeper finishing Second. Covering him was my Academy Keeper Joe Howard who had a solid season and he might just be good enough to take over once Kodalak retires.

In defence Pedro Leite continued at right back however it appears age is catching up to him as he only managed to play half my league games and managed less games than his understudy English Wonderkid Russell Clarkson who had a solid season domestically and will hopefully be his long term successor and he was even named English Young player of the Year. On the left Spanaird Ricardo Jimenez Garcia did well however he was moaning about wanting a new challenge so he'll be sold off next season as I have several promising English Left Backs waiting in the wings, the best of those is another Wonderkid Robbie Sloane who put in some good performances when called upon this season.

On the Right Wing Brazilian born Englishman Eduardo reclaimed his first team spot with some fantastic performances, this left Italian Alessandro Tufano to provide cover as despite rating well he was wasteful in front of goal. On the left Captain Dario put in some good performances, whilst his understudy Glaucio wasn't best pleased and will join Inter at the end of the season, and this gave English Youngster John Burt a chance to impress.

In the centre of midfield Kyle Herbert stepped up this season and with a first team spot he finally showed why he's the fourth best player in the World, partnering him was my Vice-Captain Ricardo Sousa who was also in fine form. Providing cover was Brett Stubbs who did well when called upon will hopefully be my long term replacement for Sousa, fellow Englishman Jordan Charles was also in good form.

Upfront Ryan Reeves was again in fantastic form scoring 39 goals (that was a new Nantwich record) in 44 games he also managed to claim 22 assists aswell, whilst his average rating of 8.09 and 19 Man of the Match awards were also new Nantwich records, partnering him again when fit was Spanish Striker Inaki Zelaia who was also on fire scoring 21 goals from 33 games, these two really are deadly together it's just a shame Zelaia is injury prone. Providing cover was experienced Spanish Striker Antonio Costa who had a solid season when called upon, partnering him was Danny Giles who did well domestically but won't be around much longer as he wants £70K a week to sit on the bench so I'll need one of my other promising strikers to step up next season which will hopefully be either Mark Street or Mexican Salvador Sanchez who both showed flashes of their potential this season.

After resigning from Hungary the only job I could get was the England U21 job, I didn't know at the time that as U21 coach you get no staff and so ended up using the job to look at my Nantwich youngsters, there was also some pressure with the job as the only two times the U21's have lost in the last 10 years is in the Final of the U21 Championship.

That said we comfortably walked the group claiming a playoff spot with a game to go, though I won't be managing the playoffs as at the end of the season Portugal offered me a job after their manager resigned after winning the European Championships.

Man City won the League again and the Carling Cup, Chelsea the FA Cup, Real Madrid the European Cup, Bayern Leverkeusen the Europa League.
For the next season, a whole new defence is required, and I hope to consolidate rather than pushing for another promotion.

Load a game with the English leagues only, with the Blue Square N/S selected, a large database (or smaller if preferred), the attribute masking, real players and transfer boxes ticked and the add key staff box unticked. It should look like this.

Ashford (Middx)

Sesion Review Ashford(Middlesex) 2010/11

Do a very short one since I'm tired, and got work in the morning.1st season Signed 10 different free transfer players, including the famous Jabuti, who racked up a total of 40 League Goals in 39 games(44goals in 46 games)

2nd season
Started out with some drama it did. During the summer of 2011, the club informed me that a takeover was in progress. And after a few weeks with a transfer embargo. The Ashford board informed me that the takeover was now complete, and Belarus Based Vojin Djordjevic was my new chairman. Then the rumours started whispering that Vojin wanted to replace me as a manager. My contract expiring after this season. I must admit it did get under my skin. A request for a new contract was made, And they made me wait until 1st of May 2012 before offering me one. I now make a whooping 400£ a week until June 2014.Transfers
A total of of 18 transfers in. 2 of them loans.
Most notable signing. 22 year old Stephen Stirling My assman believes he'd be a good signing for a Championship Side! Though neither of my coaches believe he will improve much. 7.64 av rating Jabuti had another good season, last season he was inhuman, had some small injuries, and struggled with morale. But still 29 goals in 37 games, and av rating of 7.49 is not too shabby. Let us hope for another 1 goal a game ratio for 2012/13!
Another success Signing Andrew Mitchell Rounds up the top 3 with an average of 7.39 in 38 games. Report says he'll be a good signing for most League 2 sides.

Blue Square South, finished 3rd Made it to the Playoff Final, a game against Sutton Utd. Total domination was a fact. We basicly set up camp outside their penalty box for the first 90 minutes. Yet we could not put in the net. So extra time was upon us. in the 104th minute, they(sutton) had their first shot on goal. And my new goalie for the season Ranger's released Grant Adam fumbled it in... Another year in BSS for us. (we'll win it this time!)FA Cup4th Qual. round, lost out 2-3 to Dover AwayFA Trophy3rd Qual round, lost out 0-1 to Worcester.
Highest Attendance 1990 v Chelsford in BSS playoff semi final
Lowest Attendance 249 vs Bromley BSS game
Av attendance 444Finances
Transfer Kitty 40£ (!)
Wage Budget 6,250£
Wage total 6,725£Board Expectations
Win the Blue Square South(they wanted me to gain a respectable position)
I went for the top spot, because I managed to totally screw up my wage budget last season. Signing several Released players from high rep clubs. I ended up with a 6.2k wage total on a 4k budget. Loosing money fast. Thankfully my new Belarus Chairman is not afraid to invest money in the club. A total income of 592k£ last season. 322k of those came from Investments to help with the running costs. And I needed a big wage budget to be able to offer Stephen Stirling a new contract.(hopefully he'll accept one, as his contract expires after this season) I need to offload some of my high earner signings who didn't impress me last season.
HAHA Success! He signed

Well after a quite lengthy break away from my Canvey Island adventure (exams, exams and more exams, oh and a well-deserved holiday) I'm back, eventually . I'm at the crunch end of the season now, with 8 league games left and a Europa League Semi (and possible final) left to play, all somehow to be done within 30 days . Yeah I'm not liking the odds of doing having a refreshed squad by the end of it either .

League Table- What a surprise, I honestly entered this season with the belief that I would be struggling to get a mid-table posistion as I wasn't quite content with who i signed. However it was a great achievement and one I am very proud of.

Transfers- I wasn't intially happy with these as I worried I was lacking quality as the board were poor were not giving more freedom regarding scouting or budget so this meant I had to do a lot of trialling which is were Jank came from. but after the season got underway it was clear these were excellant additions. The best signing was Bostock closely followed by Baker.

Squad They clicked and were brilliant in attack and the defence proved to be strong enough aswell.

Fa Cup Another good tie however the everton result was my fault as I wasn't paying attention so we kept attacking

Key Players

Wilson He was superb, again, he made the difference in lots of games as he returned to his first season exploits.

After 4 season of slow, if not steady, improvement it was time to make that big step into the top 4 and bag myself CL football. The media had us around the European places once again, whilst odds of 33-1 showed we had an outside chance of a title shot.

In a complete turnaround from last season, we started with 4 straight wins (including a 6-4 win vs Spurs and a 2-1 away win at Chelsea) gave us the perfect start. A 2-2 draw at Newcastle and a 2-1 defeat at Man Utd were the only belmishes into December where staggering we didn't have the lead. One reason was because of being at times 4 games behind, due to European commitments, and the fact that Arsenal up to them had only dropped 2 points . A 2-2 draw at home was the first game at home in the league that I didn't come out victorious, but this was forgotten as we defeated the Gunners 2-1 to take top spot. This was in the middle of 8 straight wins which stretched the lead at the top which was only overturn with being so far behind in our games (more on that later).

As we kept on plugging away winning the games when they weren't postponed, we eventually managed to secure the title with ease as Arsenal faded dramatically in the second half of the season, and everyone taking points of each other in the battle for the other CL places. We faded badly after winning the league, with a pile-up of manic proportions and other prizes to play for taking priority once the league had been won.

We won the whole tie within the first half in Germany, and we could have scored more in the home leg had we played a full strength side also. Luckily, in the other semi final Celtic knocked out Benfica so the final would be against our preferred opponents.

Brilliant peformance. Essien became our oldest ever scorer at over 40 years old, and Horvath scored probably one of the goals of the season with a 25 yrd stunner.

Squad (1)(2)
Rotation was the key. Playing 68 games throughout the season and Downing started the most with only 42. Had a good mix of golden oldies and youngsters (many of whom have came through the academy here). Rotation was crucial, no doubt to the connection of our massive fixture pile up in the last few months of the season. Was ridiculous at times.

There's a reason why he started the most games this season. A great find a couple of years ago, now trying to keep him from joining the likes of European Champions Real Madrid and Inter Milan.

Transfers - Just the few additions, including the re-introduction of Canovas after selling himn to Kiev 4 and a half years ago. Though he didn't fit in with the squad, so duly left in January along with summer addition Bond, who was on course to being my player of the year beforehand, and Diallo, who beforehand had been out on loan and came back a man possessed.

Finances - Another season with £88m profit, though only because of transfer income. Wage costs still rising, which may be a concern when the income finally stops coming in.Confidence - I am 'Untouchable' surely now? I am a club legend now so I think the confidence level won't go down much in a while.

Aims for next season: To have another bash at the title, just to prove that this season wasn't a fluke. But the main aim is the CL now. Getting out of the groups is a must. Also, I've got a job trying to convinve Pepe, Tuia, Reo-Coker and Essien not to retire to stay since I would like them to tutor the youngsters so more before they go

Stand out players so far has been Dylan McGeouch and Daniel Powell, both scoring crucial goals throughout the season. Especially to get me through a second round replay against Kettering in the FA Cup. Unfortunately my FA Cup run was stopped in the third round, when Chelsea came to Cambridge and beat us 4-0

Going into the season, the board would have been satisfied with a mid-table finish. I knew better, though, and told them I would win the league to get a higher wage budget. Selling a backup player to Doncaster for 85k didn't hurt the finances either . It was even easier than I thought - the title was mathematically secure after 42 games, despite York's heroic efforts. 100 points would have been enough to win the league any other year...

This is one of the main reasons for our success - 4 of the top 5 assisters in the league were on my team. Even more impressively, 3 of those players had injury problems throughout the whole season, missing around 15 matches each. Here are the 4 undoubted stars of our promotion campaign:

I played a pretty simple 4-4-2. I am not generally one for fancy tactics. My most important players were Jabuti, former Luton winger Taylor Nathaniel, former Celtic striker Sean Fitzharris and former Rangers midfielder Nick Main. Jabuti actually disappointed me a little, I had expecting him to be able to get a goal a game or so as he seems to have done for others of you, and it certainly wasn't that - he once went 7 games without a goal - but he still had a tremendous season, and saved his best performances for the most crucial games.

I thought we had a pretty good season but unfortunately we just couldn't keep pace with runaway leaders Salisbury, who didn't even lose a match until more than half way through the season. So even though we finished second, that meant we had to suffer the playoffs. In the first round we faced Dover, who'd already done the double over us, and we were 2-0 down at half-time - I honestly thought our season was over. Fortunately we pulled one back in the second half, and in the return leg we won 3-1 after extra time, thanks to a Jabuti hat-trick. In the final we beat Eastleigh 2-1, thanks to two more from Jabuti.

In the FA Cup we got to the first round, where we narrowly lost to League One Chesterfield. Unfortunately we did not do as well in the FA Trophy, losing to Braintree in the 3rd qualifying round.

Hi after Reading about this challenge i decided to take a look and i was reading the first couple of pages and got very inspired to do this even though i said i was doing the Small Club to Big Club Big Euro Nation Challenge i decided to start as Oxford City but gave up because they were too hard for me so i decided to take the reigns of Dartford on the 10.2 patch.

I will do both challenges for now and if i get addickted to one then i think i will stick with that one

Started off with 3 new players agreeing to come to Cambridge before I was added to the game, these being Darryl Coakley, Adam Tann, and Joe Day. I then managed to strengthen my team by signing a few players released by Rangers and Celtic and bringing in two players on loan. My 1st game in charge was a nightmare, somehow Woking only managed to beat us 1-0, this made me determined to try and strengthen the team even more, thats why a lot of my signings were made in August and September. We finished the season in poor form, and drawing too many games, which nearly left us having to go into the playoffs, but we were lucky that Chemlsford and Woking were also slipping up, allowing us to win the league

Highlight of the season was getting to the third round of the FA Cup, but the dream was short lived when we got thrased by Chelsea Lowlight of the season was losing 5-3 to Grays when 2-0 up at halftime

I was finding loads of great central midfielders and strikers, and couldn't get a half-decent wide player for love nor money. So I switched to a 4-3-3. Given a more supporting role, Jabuti had a fairly quiet season, but Chris Dickson tore it up, with 39 goals in all competitions. Along with veteran Pedro Moutinho, they formed my ace strikeforce. We ran away with the league, and won the FA Trophy too, but unfortunately lost in the second round of the FA Cup to Chester of the BS South, depriving us of much-needed funds. My finances are really not good right now.

CatQT - 1 year on and you're still not ready. Bah Humbug Sheep Runner Up

Posts

5,956

Merthyr Tydfil - Mid Season Update

League - So far i have done better than I expected with only being 3 points behind Newport County at the half way stage, after just being beaten by them. The top of the table is extremely close with the league leaders only 4 points away from 6th place, which should make the run in very exciting.

FA Cup - Got a 3rd round match against Southampton coming up, haven't had a difficult run I so far, the most difficult tie so far was a second round tie against Mansfield who i beat 2-1.

FA Trophy - Knocked out of the first round after losing 3-2 to Kidderminster.

Season Summary:
There is only one word to describe this season... “Inconsistent” as you can see from the graph we went through unbeaten runs breaking the record then we went 10 games without a win which coincidently was when Christiano Kisuka went on his longest goal drought which spanned over those 10 games. Also Charlton became our Parent Club and loaned us Carl Jenkinson who got about 2 games in the season.

My Squad were really young seeing as I snapped most of them up from Celtic and Rangers on free transfers so my oldest starting 11 player was off 22 years of age and goes by the name of James McQuilkin, with the squad being very young this might explain half of the fact we were inconsistent but I felt toward the end of the season they were starting to gel and become a real team.

In fact it was down to the last game to see whether we could snatch the last playoff place, we had to beat in form Bromley who finished second, and we needed Forest Green to lose against Welling, Havant & W were up against St Albans and Braintree were playing Lewes and if either of them won and us and Forest green didn’t win they would take the spot by a single point.

This is how we did. We Were completely and Utterly outplayed and I’m surprised we even manage to get a goal let alone 2 it was a very strong showing from Bromley who deserved their place in the playoffs, Forest green could only manage a 2-2 all draw which meant that Havant and W who thrashed St Albans 3-0 took the last playoff spot seeing as Braintree managed a 0-0 Draw with Lewes

Star Players Christiano Kisuka – Brought on a free transfer after Rangers released him, he managed to win BSS Player of the Season and was the clubs top goalscorer and the Leagues to Assister with 15 Assists and 19 Goals in the league but unfortunately he was inconsistent too but next year he should be better and hungrier for goals.

Kyle Hutton – Didn’t make much of an impact till mid season and then he was on fire but as soon as he was praised in the media he threatened to quit English football (bit extreme) and then the next game the opposition took him out and we lost him till the last 2 or 3 matches.

Next Season Goals
• Automatic Promotion
• Good Run in Cups

Career Overview

Code:

Season League League Finish Achievements
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2010/11 Blue Square South 10th

I stuck with a 4-3-3, although I played more defensively this year. My tactics were never great and I found myself constantly tweaking them, but we did enough to win the league again. My star players were Daniel Nardiello, Reuben Reid and loan star Gavin Hoyte. We also got Simone Dell'Agnello on loan from Liverpool and while he couldn't score (once going over 20 hours between goals) he got very high ratings.

We lost in the first round of the Johnstone's Paint Foofarah, but did much better in the FA Cup, reaching the 4th round where we narrowly lost to Premier League Aston Villa. The highlight was a 5-0 tonking of League One Oldham in the 3rd round, which bodes very well for next year.

Finances remain a huge concern. We go into League One with a capacity of just 3070 and it's not even all-seater - is that legal! Training facilities are also basic. We have £480k in the bank and no debts, but board are too tight to do anything, so I suppose I will have to sell players to fund the club.

I thought teams had essentially reacted to my 4-3-3, plus I somehow managed to persuade Ross Wallace to join us, so I switched to a 4-4-2. But it was a desperately disappointing season. I hadn't expected to walk away with the league again, but I did expect playoffs. As you can see from the table, our biggest problem was the leaky defence. The centre backs were terrible and I just couldn't get things right there. Our best players were Wallace and Sam Baldock, another highlight was Hawar Mulla Mohammed getting his 100th cap for Iraq with us.

We lost to League Two Northampton in the first round of the St Johnstone's Timewaster, but did much better in the other competitions. League Cup we lost to Championship Southampton in the first round after a penalty shoot-out, and in the FA Cup we reached the 3rd round where we lost to Nottingham Forest, again on penalties.

Overall I am thinking of abandoning the challenge. I am finding the financial aspect very frustrating. I have a wage bill of just 24k per week and running a squad at the very bare bones, and I am still losing money. I've turned down offers from clubs which would give me a wage bill more than ten times greater than what I have. The stadium is still tiny and the board won't expand or even invest in training facilities. I feel like I am running in a wheel. I will continue through the summer and see whether I am going to continue this long-term.

After a good start to the season are squad managed to push on and battle it out with Newport County for the top spot in the league. It came down to a very tense final game of the season with us only just winning the league, we were second at one stage of the final day, by scrapping through to beat Bishop's Stortford 1-0. Strengthened the squad after January with a couple of free transfers to add a bit more depth to the squad. Next season may lead me to selling a few of my reserves to get the wage budget down.

I thought teams had essentially reacted to my 4-3-3, plus I somehow managed to persuade Ross Wallace to join us, so I switched to a 4-4-2. But it was a desperately disappointing season. I hadn't expected to walk away with the league again, but I did expect playoffs. As you can see from the table, our biggest problem was the leaky defence. The centre backs were terrible and I just couldn't get things right there. Our best players were Wallace and Sam Baldock, another highlight was Hawar Mulla Mohammed getting his 100th cap for Iraq with us.

We lost to League Two Northampton in the first round of the St Johnstone's Timewaster, but did much better in the other competitions. League Cup we lost to Championship Southampton in the first round after a penalty shoot-out, and in the FA Cup we reached the 3rd round where we lost to Nottingham Forest, again on penalties.

Overall I am thinking of abandoning the challenge. I am finding the financial aspect very frustrating. I have a wage bill of just 24k per week and running a squad at the very bare bones, and I am still losing money. I've turned down offers from clubs which would give me a wage bill more than ten times greater than what I have. The stadium is still tiny and the board won't expand or even invest in training facilities. I feel like I am running in a wheel. I will continue through the summer and see whether I am going to continue this long-term.

I wish I had a 24k per week budget... I think the key is to go after players who have been unemployed for a relatively long time (wage demands seem to drop sharply after about a year of unemployment), and players who don't make a lot of money at their current club (i.e. players released from academies, as opposed to first team players from a lower league). here are my player salaries:

Joe Gamble is my captain and one of my best players. he only asked for 275 p/w because he was released in July 2012 and I didn't sign him until July 2013. Stephen Elliott - released in April 2010, signed in July 2012. his contract was even cheaper but he got an automatic raise when we were promoted... Gary Dicker - released July 2012, signed July 2013. these are probably my 3 best players overall... meanwhile my starting centre backs make 150 p/w each, because they're 19 years old and were released from League One / Championship academies.

I can't afford to sign any players who are first team players in League Two. even some BSP players make too much money... most transfer listed players in higher leagues aren't affordable either. I can't begin to tell you how many players I had to give lowball offers and got rejected... you just have to spend some time searching through the free transfer list every summer.

The reason for all this activity is that despite our fine performances last season, the board drastically cut the wage bill. So I sold the entire team apart from Ross Wallace and Hawar, and signed a whole new team out of loans and free transfers. I also released our entire youth setup because, sad to say, I needed that little bit extra on the wage bill. It was far from an ideal team - I missed out on a lot of good players who I just couldn't accomodate within my wage bill, and obviously we needed to gel, but what kept me going was that the board announced a new stadium. It will take two years to build, and I will have to keep scraping the barrel until then, but that at least gave me some kind of light at the end of the tunnel.

Once again I played a 4-4-2, but modified it some more so Wallace didn't have to track back. He and Josh Simpson pulled the strings in midfield, with 49 assists between them, but our stars were the strikers, former Charlton man Serges Delbe, and Neil Smith, who Liverpool kindly let me have on loan. Between them they scored 58 goals, which is what got us promoted despite our leaky defence. We were the best team in the division, but a congested fixture list and too many draws let Swindon win the title.

In the League Cup we lost in the first round to Championship Fulham after extra time. In the FA Cup we reached the third round, then lost to a late goal away to Premier League Birmingham. And in the Johnstone's Paint Timewaster we actually managed to win the whole thing, beating Nottingham Forest 3-2 at Wembley in front of 80,000. A good season in the cups.

I wish I had a 24k per week budget... I think the key is to go after players who have been unemployed for a relatively long time (wage demands seem to drop sharply after about a year of unemployment), and players who don't make a lot of money at their current club (i.e. players released from academies, as opposed to first team players from a lower league). here are my player salaries:

Joe Gamble is my captain and one of my best players. he only asked for 275 p/w because he was released in July 2012 and I didn't sign him until July 2013. Stephen Elliott - released in April 2010, signed in July 2012. his contract was even cheaper but he got an automatic raise when we were promoted... Gary Dicker - released July 2012, signed July 2013. these are probably my 3 best players overall... meanwhile my starting centre backs make 150 p/w each, because they're 19 years old and were released from League One / Championship academies.

I can't afford to sign any players who are first team players in League Two. even some BSP players make too much money... most transfer listed players in higher leagues aren't affordable either. I can't begin to tell you how many players I had to give lowball offers and got rejected... you just have to spend some time searching through the free transfer list every summer.

That's exactly what I do. When I was in League Two as you are my budget was actually a little lower than yours. The problem is that as you move up the divisions you need better players, but my board isn't letting me get them - the budget is not keeping pace with the division I'm in. I'm not quitting just yet because there's now light at the end of the tunnel, but it's frustrating. I'm in the Championship with all the money you get from that, I sold £3.4m of players this summer, and what wage bill does my team allow me? £29.5k. Aaagh! Just that money I raised in player sales would cover a wage bill of £65k per week, it's very annoying. If the board would stop sabotaging me I'd be in the Premier League. Instead I have to try and survive in the Championship. If I can stay up this year, I'll get my new stadium, and hopefully the board will start being sensible. If they don't, I'll quit the challenge, because at the risk of hyperbole I feel like Marlborough.

As for my game, I've spent a few hours going through pre-season, got a pretty good squad together I think, offered out loads of trials and picked up who I thought was a good player, can't find any decent DM's for the life of me though, which seeing as I was planning on a narrow 4-1-3-2 is quite dissapointing. Going to have to change my plans now it seems and either go 5 in midfield, or a flat 4-4-2. I'll probably go with the 5 in midfield as I have a very good French CM/AM and Peterborough (parent club) sent me a young striker on loan who's pretty decent so they could form a nice partnership. Would mean wasting a very good Irish striker I got my hands on though. I doubt I'll be able to play a flat 4-4-2 as I have no tackling in my midfield so will need the extra bodies there to counter-act that.

Found a half decentish DM, he's old and not that good but will fill a gap and allow me to play my narrow 4-1-3-2 which I think will work well at this level, will probably alternate between that a 5-3-2 as I don't think my DM willl be able to play too many full 90 mins and I have 3 good CB's, saying that, I may well switch to a 4-5-1 as I have some decent wingers and a fair few good CM's. Will see how it pans out.

Just played my first game against Gainsborough, won 2-0

I'll post an update with all my transfer dealings etc on sometime tomorrow.

After finally winning the league last season, the board were wanting a similar repeat performance, with the media expecting the same. Pre-season odds also reflected this, though I wasn't at the front of the queue.

Another fantastic start, with winning 4 out of the first 4, set the tone for the season almost. A double slip-up to the North London teams (defeat vs Arsenal and a draw @ Spurs) put me on the back-foot almost, chasing the leaders Arsenal until January, when they eventually had their own minor blip letting us take control. Barring a hiccup @ Wolves (1-2) we were unbeaten from the end of September until April, though we had been stuttering beforehand with a collection of draws against Man City, Sheff Utd and Ipswich (for the second time).

This left the door open for Arsenal to claim back the advatange, which they did slashing the gap from 10 points to just a couple. Tight and cagey wins against West Ham, Wolves and Hull meant that we maintained the top spot with one game to go. But whilst we had to travel to europe-chasing Man Utd, Arsenal only had to play the already relegated Hammers.

Despite dominating the majority of the game, we couldn't extend our lead any further than the 1 we had, but that was all that was needed to claim a successive legue title.

4 consecutive home draws was a nice welcome surprise, especially missing anyone of note in the first couple of rounds. The semi fell right in the middle of our hiccup around April time, and we didn't really deserve to go through past this stage.

I'm still trying to work out how we got through that 3rd round tie, we had no business taking that past 90 mins to be honest. Superb defence through the remainder of the games though, especially as I was using mostly fringe players throughout the run.

The reward for winning the Euro Cup last season was a run-out against the reigning ECC holders, which showed the first real signs that we could progress far in the premier European competition.

European Champions Cup

Winning the league last year meant that I didn't have to go through any of the qualifiers this year, and my recent European adventures ensured that I managed to squeeze into the second pot of seeds. This was reflected in the pre-season odds for the tournament, the bookies not expecting a fairytale story in our first season in the competition. That though didn't help matters, being drawn in one of the tougher groups conspiring of Lyon, Stuttgart and Genoa.

Fully deserved victory in a tight game, even if we had to wait longer than I would've wanted to score what turned out to be the winner.

Squad (1)(2)
More or less the same as it has been the last couple of years, but with the likes of Pepe, Reo-Coker retiring in the summer and Essien oddly in January, some new young blood was brought in. Same rotation policy as last year played its part, and its nice to see all the goals spread around also.

There's a reason why he has been threatening to take over the goal-keeper's position for good in the last couple of seasons and this time he did just that. Also getting some worldwide noticement by getting into the World Team of the Year (along with Horváth) following in the great Ustari's footsteps.

Transfers - Failure to keep Downing at the club despite my efforts were slightly annoying, not as much as the constant bickering of Bell which caused the sale of him also. Also odd to see Thiele being chased by Inter only 6 months after missing the chance to get him on a free in the summer, especially as my youngster Cook was picked ahead of him when I needed my strongest line-up.

Finances - We ALMOST made a profit without including transfer sales, though with over £250m in the bank I'm not that bothered how the money comes in to be honest.Confidence- I keep beating the expectations set down for me, though I'm not sure for how much longer since there's only so much they can ask for in one go.

The Trophy Cabinet
Blue Square South - 2011/12
Blue Square Premier - 2012/13
Coca-Cola League 2 - 2013/14
Coca-Cola League 1 - 2015/16
Coca-Cola Championship - 2017/18
League Cup - 2019/20, 2023/24
FA Cup - 2020/21
Community Shield - 2021/22
English Premier League - 2022/23, 2023/24
Euro Cup - 2022/23
European Super Cup - 2023/24
European Champions Cup - 2023/24
Aims for next season: Now that I've done the challenge, I think the next logical step is to try and see how far a fully HG side can go, then eventually see how much well I can do with a side full of academy graduates.. A clean sweep of trophies would be a nice aim to get also at some point.

Yet again I sold my entire team and tried to sign replacements on a free transfer. This was necessary because despite promotion my board did not increase the wage bill - and of course all my players got 25% pay rises. The advantage of this is it raises money, and often I am able to get better players at cheaper wages, released by other teams. The disadvantage is that you might find yourself very short in one position or other, just by chance - until now I'd been lucky, but this year it came back to bite me. I simply could not get even a half-decent striker. I ended up playing a 4-2-3-1, with the lone striker either the withered remains of Didier Drogba, or Simone Dell'Agnello - who'd barely been able to score when on loan with us in League Two. As a result we struggled to score all season long, and in the first third of the season I really thought we would be relegated. Fortunately we managed to turn things around in the second half (mostly by tightening up at the back) and somehow sneaked into the playoffs!

In the playoffs we got Sheffield United in the semis. We lost the first leg 2-0 at home, but in the return leg we managed to go in up 2-0 at half-time, levelling the tie. The game went to extra time,
then penalties. Mutch missed the crucial spot-kick, and Sheffield United broke our hearts. Our new stadium would be opening in the Championship, not the Premier League.

In the League Cup we lost 3-2 to Premier League Birmingham in the Second Round. In the FA Cup we beat Premier League Blackburn in the 3rd round, but lost on a replay in the 4th round to Championship side Bolton. Not great in the cups, not terrible either.

I honestly expected a relegation battle so, to my great surprise, we easily managed to get promoted to League One for the first time in the club's history. Not only that, but we reached the Johnstone's Paint Trophy North Final (actually the semifinal of the competition), as well as the 5th round of the FA Cup, beating Championship club Derby en route. These matches weren't exactly classics - I played a super-defensive 4-1-4-1... had some fixture congestion as a result of these cup adventures.

And here's everyone in my squad I think is remotely good enough for League One. Not a lot of defenders as you can see...

I anticipate a long season ahead of us. Even out of that squad list, I'd say only about 3-4 players are good enough to be regular starters in League One. Nonetheless, I'm happy enough to have been promoted at the first time of asking. League One: to boldly go where no Boston United manager has ever gone.

I switched to a 4-4-2. My best players were Marco Angelo and Antonio Formica, both strikers on loan from Man Utd. Joe Cole was something of a disappointment. I paid my first ever transfer fee to get John Fleck - and I'm not sure how he did. His overall rating was just 6.95, but he did get 15 goals and 16 assists.

I had a much better team this year, and we started off the year brilliantly, leading the table for ages. Then we collapsed mid-season, and were well outside the playoffs. We then clawed our way back up the table, and secured a playoff spot on the last day of the season, then beat Blackburn and Leeds to finally get ourselves promoted to the Premier League. Yay.

In the League Cup we lost to Swansea on penalties in the second round. In the FA Cup we lost to Premier League side Aston Villa in the fifth round.

Financially the board have loosened some of the strings, and hopefully they will loosen them even more, because my policy of selling the whole team every season and only buying free transfers has left me with a very old and limited side (which is why I've struggled to get out of the Championship). If I want to stay up I'm going to have to get a lot younger and a lot better in a hurry. The board should be willing to do this because the new stadium has more than doubled our income, and being in the Premier League should give us loadsamoney.

Story of the Season:Premier League: An opening day 4-1 defeat against Liverpool didn't bode well, but that seemed to galvanise us, as we smashed our way to a P24 W22 L2 record. I started blooding far too many youngsters to be really competitive at this point, but we still didn't drop that many points on our way to regaining our crown.

Champions League: Absolutely blew the competition away yet again, only Man City in the semi providing any real resistance. Still dismantled them 3-0 on aggregate, then beat Celtic 4-1 in the final.

FA Cup: A trophy we'd missed out on the last couple of seasons, we had a fairly easy run to the final, where we overcame a strong Aston Villa side 2-1.

League Cup: The youngsters and reserves were doing us proud until an inexplicable 2-0 loss in the second leg of the semi.

Minor Competitions: Lost the European Super Cup, wasn't involved in the Charity Shield, inexplicably ballsed up the Club World Championship to finish 3rd and lose my 100% record in that competition.

Other News: Having lost Sasa Vukomanovic, my Assman of 18 years, in the summer, I appointed retiring former captain Tommy Fraser. He was superb, impeccable in press conferences, which I could not trust Sasa with, and coming in with sound advice when required. Unfortunately this work was noticed by Newcastle, who snapped him up as their manager so quick I didn't have an opportunity to make a counter offer. To be honest though, he'll do a great job and should not waste his career operating under someone else. No suitable candidates were available internally so I went external, hiring former Mexico manager David Echeverria.

Next Season:Try and win all four proper trophies, keep the youth coming through.

5 Most Important Players:Messed up the timing of the screenshot on these, sorry
5. Magalhaes - AM/FC - Lost his place in the team for a bit, but the sparing use seemed to reinvigorate him.
4. Paulinho - GK - Coming up to 800 appearances for Merthyr, I've high hopes of him cracking the 1000 mark before his shot-stopping days are over. Will not play as many games next season though unfortunately due to a hip injury in preseason, not to mention a couple of promising youth keepers.
3. Ramon Colunga- DC - Outstanding pillar of strength at the back, truly rising to inherit Garate's mantle. 2. John Hollis - ST - Scored some wonderful, not to mention important, goals but not quite in the quantities of last year's breakthrough. I'm sure he'll push on though.
1. Andres Ruiz - ST - Went from being a squad player to first name on the team sheet in important matches. His superiority in the air over any of our other strikers made him an excellent outlet and partner for Hollis and Maggio.

SnakeXe's International Career - Unemployed - Season 27 - 2036/37Story of the Season:Nice and relaxing, very glad I quit Italy really, never really got their side playing the way I wanted. Won't take another international job bar England again, or the real objective which is Wales. The ultimate ambition in this save is to get the Merthyr academy producing enough good players to win Wales a major international tournament. Unfortunately Rhys Weston, the current incumbent, shows no signs of being sacked or quitting. What happened to the feature where you could declare interest in a job? His was insecure at the start of the season but just reset to stable.

Next Season:England or Wales. Preferably Wales.At a Glance:Nothing to see here

As you see, after years of restraint I finally splashed out. I ran a very small squad and fortunately had few injuries. I focused on trying to bring in players who would be part of my future title-winning side - in particular that meant Guz' and Odedoyin. Those two were both excellent, but my best player was the left-back, Andres Lopez Garcia. In a sign of the times, all three are newgens.

The table tells its own story - 38 games played, 34 goals. Inadequate strikers? Yes, in part, but also too defensive and narrow a midfield. I couldn't find good attacking midfielders (wide or central), so I was obliged to play a 4-1-3-2 and the goals just didn't flow. We were fine at the back though, which is why we were comfortably mid-table.

We lost in the 4th round of both Cups, Chelsea in the League Cup, Man City in the FA Cup.

The funnest save game I have ever had the privilege of playing has just suddenly disappeared from my documents because of some stupid virus So I created a new account. Goodbye Oxford City I'll try and get you on FM11, that is unless they didn't get promoted this year ?

Anyway I managed to recover the dafuge save point and have come up with Cambridge City. Will give you the profile soon

well, looks like we're in for a real relegation battle this time around. 5 points after 12 matches... two promotions in two years does have its drawbacks... we finally recorded our first win on October 7. that's right - we beat mighty Port Vale, bankrupt relegation candidates in League Two, in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy. to add insult to injury (or the other way around I guess), Filipe Teixeira, our best player, broke his ankle in that match and will be out for at least 3 months.

it all went wrong when I blew half of my transfer budget on a mediocre right back, who proceeded to lose two games on his own (literally - I had a comfortable two goal lead in both of them before he decided to take matters into his own hands and give away a stupid penalty, or pass the ball to the opposition striker). as I was about to bench him, he tore a muscle in his groin to make the decision a lot easier on me. I guess I just got overexcited at being handed a 600,000 pound transfer budget - my previous record transfer was 3,500 pounds...

Quite a dissapointing season really, especially after such a good start where I was up in 2nd after 8 games. The squad really struggled to gel with a lot of new faces, and I changed formation a lot. I changed a lot between a narrow 4-1-3-2 to a 4-5-1/4-3-3, to a 4-4-2. Going to just stick with a basic 4-4-2 for next season.

As you can see, a lot of change in the squad, best player was Luca Coleman-Carr who was on loan from Lincoln, was solid at LB and even popped up with a couple of goals. Other two important ones were Gavin Cowan who was solid in the centre of the defence, and Bobby Traynor who got me 18 goals in 36 starts and 5 sub appearances. Was pretty much the only person scoring for a large part of the season. Danny Mills, who was sent to me from parent club Peterborough, was largely dissapointing, he started off well, but then started to "feel the expectations of media pressure" or something like that and he never really recovered.

In the cups, I went out in the 3rd qualifying round of the FA Cup losing 2-0 to Bedford, and in the FA Trophy I lost on penalities in a replay against Eastwood in the 3rd qualifying round.

Squad - the balance of the squad is superb, although there are a few players who will need replacing soon.

Transfers - not a lot to see really as we just trimmed the squad a bit. Long term target Giovanni Aiello is joining on a free transfer and Thomas Ndlovu is joining for a stupidly high fee as I try to bring in more English players.

I've had a couple of decent looking youngsters in Geoff Tynan and Adam Holt, so I'm going to try and integrate them into the squad and try and bring a more English feel to it. I'll still be signing foreigners, but I'll be looking out for more good English players.

As for my aims, I don't really have any at the moment. My club value has reached £1b, so the only other thing I would like is a stadium that holds 100k.